The Future of Sales and Marketing
I think about this quite a bit and my opinions are changing all the time too. Sales is getting harder no doubt and marketing is changing every single day.
Here is where I sit today. This is going to be a bit of a brain dump.
In the small business space, sales directors and managing directors are generally from a time before social media and digital as we know it today. There are of course exceptions.
As a result older sales and marketing tactics are still favourable. This is what the management team understand.
They have worked hard to get where they are using these tactics and now they are being told the game has changed.
So despite telesales, direct mail, and exhibitions getting harder they still have a place today with so many decision makers still prepared to pay for these services.
Its not that they dont work its that they dont work as well as they used too. The same can be said for advertising to a degree. In fact some of these tactics are no the problem per se its that they are not done very well.
So today's sales people are still being fed the numbers game story and told to keep hammering the phone and pounding the pavement.
Marketing is a similar story in my opinion. Small business marketers originally used to be more creative than technical and were great organisers. So event management and design for print were the comfort zone.
Today a small business marketer has to have as many technical skills as they do creative. Having some IT skills is not really enough you need to want to know what's new, what's next and how it all fits in to the big picture.
However these types of marketers generally did not get into marketing to demonstrate their SEO skills.
So what all this means to me is that us digital folk can keep croaking on about digital transformation, mobile first and buyer journeys all day long and its not going to make the dents it should.
We are in a funny time in business, huge companies and entire industries are being wiped out and replaced by those who understand how disruption works and what part technology is having on the buying process.
And yet small business owners either think it does not affect them? Maybe it doesn't yet? or they simply choose to ignore it.
I do my best to educate as many people as i can about anything i "think" i know that will help business owners. But as they say "you can drag a horse to water".
I do understand this is news that small business owners don't really want to hear. Nobody wants to hear that people don't like being sold too any more, and that you know have to start teaching and giving it all away. It probably feels unnatural and sounds like a lot of hard work. No wonder they stick to what they know.
I have ran 3 introduction to digital marketing courses over the last 12 months, they are free and i am try and get people to understand how the world has changed and how they can prepare for the future of sales and marketing by investing in content and becoming great teachers.
I have not seen anyone do this just yet, a few tried and have already given up.
Is the UK small business world not ready for a digital first, mobile first world?
So the future to me is this, yes sales and marketing teams need to merge into one, teaching is the future of business and only those that see this and want to embrace it will reap the benefits over the next few years.
Everything is up for grabs and whoever gets this and starts owning a space will be a success in the future.
In particular those that invest in video and provide the most valuable and customer centric experience are going to win big!
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Author- Speaker - Consultant. Passionate about all things digital.